Seeing the woman did not understand the expression, someone explained: “Gebetene — it means that the children were asked for”
L ong before our children were shidduch age my husband and I knew of the words shidduch crisis.
Scary words — only we weren’t so scared. We had wonderful children and although we were not super rich or super important we considered ourselves to be nice normal good people. Surely our children would be desired and quickly matched up. We thought we’d be spared.
Then our son and daughter returned home together from their year in Eretz Yisrael. Reality pounced and held us in its grip. The things we had read about were actually true and happening to us. For our son the deluge of girls’ résumés was overwhelming. For our daughter the trickle of suitable names was disheartening. We secretly started doubting if we were truly nice (or normal for that matter). We felt sick to our stomachs about the system we found ourselves in.
Night after night I spent hours on the phone researching girls for my son and networking for my daughter. The result was dates for my son and an occasional date for my daughter. None of those were fruitful in any way. Months passed. We were getting nowhere fast.
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